§ 9.24 p.m.
§ Mr. Peter Bottomley (Woolwich, West)I am very glad that so many Members have stayed to hear about the A2, which goes from London to Europe, down through Kent. I am sorry that the Opposition Benches are empty. No doubt that is because this debate has come on earlier than an Adjournment debate usually does, and at very short notice. That will be understood. I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to answer the debate at short notice.
I wish to refer to the Eltham link of the A2 through my constituency. Although the detailed plans for the proposed relief road are the responsibility of the Greater London Council, the Ministry of Transport is involved through some of the side road orders and the effect of the missing three-mile gap on public transport, especially London Transport buses and coaches to the coast. That transport is important to my constituents and people throughout London and the South-East.
This morning there was the familiar dawn chorus on the wireless. It was announced that because of an accident on the A2 near Well Hall there were massive hold-ups. That is a constantly repeated litany. As the A2 crosses the old London County Council boundary at Falconwood, it carries as much traffic as any other major road through London. It is only a historic accident that the missing three-mile link of the A2, commonly called the Rochester Way, is not a trunk road. In the olden days roads within the LCC boundary were normally not trunk roads. The route of the A2 through my constituency 40 years ago was just a country lane. The development of our trade with Kent and even more with Europe has made that road into one of the greatest transport scandals in the country.
A public inquiry into the proposed relief road, then called the Dover radial route, started in 1970. The three-mile stretch with which the inquiry was concerned got tied in and confused with proposals for the motorway boxes in London. Regrettably the inspector's report did not become available until 1976, when we discovered that his 1355 recommendation was that it should be considered separately and the road built immediately.
The reasons for building it must be perfectly clear to everyone in the House. They would have been clear in the fourteenth century. Because of the traffic jams at Well Hall on the A2, Wat Tyler's march from Canterbury to London was announced to the authorities in London and that is why he met his end and we did not have a revolution in the 1380s.
I am lobbied about the A2 as much in this House as in my constituency. Many members of Mr. Speaker's staff, the police, the messengers and the office manager of Norman Shaw North are all affected by that road.
If an inquiry has to come, we hope that it will be set up speedily in the autumn and will not be disrupted by those who are opposed in principle to improving road facilities.
I suggest that the relief road should no longer be called the Rochester Way relief road or the Eltham relief road but should be called the Eltham link. It is just a link, and it shows the flaws in our road-building legislation. From Falconwood out to Kent there is a motorway standard road and on the western side there is a motorway going to the Blackwall tunnel, and there is then a three-mile gap in between. That road carries heavy traffic, which causes many accidents. Fortunately, there is not often loss of life because the traffic is moving slowly and the damage is normally to property. One of my constituents has had 17 cars and lorries in her small front garden in the past 15 years.
The delays are harmful, especially to commercial traffic. You and the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will not need reminding that at the northern end of the A2, after it has crossed the river, we have the great area of docklands, where we hope for industrial regeneration. Few people will be tempted to go there if they intend exporting to Europe, because of the inadequate transport facilities.
My greatest concern is not for the commuters who travel from outside the constituency at one end to outside the constituency at the other but for my constituents, as is only right and proper. At the Falconwood end, where there is 1356 a crematorium—we hope not used by too many of the people who try to use the road—in the Lingfield Crescent estate, there are people who try to avoid holdups by using what might be called the back doubles—except that they are not quite doubles but back singles—through a residential area. The residents of the Page estate who live to the south and north of the road to the west of the Well Hall roundabout and the residents all the way along, some just outside my constituency in the neighbouring constituency of Greenwich, will all be delighted when the road is eventually built.
I must utter a word of caution. If those who tend to disrupt public inquiries try to do that at any public inquiry held into proposals for the Eltham link road, the counter-demonstrations are likely to be very serious. It will not have escaped the notice of the House that two years ago, when it looked as though proposals for the road were not coming forward, there were regular demonstrations which held up traffic even more than in the normal traffic jams. I have no doubt that that kind of behaviour, which in general I try to discourage, would rear its head again.
I recognise that the short notice of this debate makes it impossible for my hon. Friend the Minister to give a detailed reply. That is why I have tried to keep as much detail as possible out of my speech. I have not given the list of all the buses that London Transport said would improve its service if the road were built, and I have not gone into a great deal of other detail. What I should like to do is to ask my hon. Friend and his Department to keep a very close watching brief over any aspect of the proposed construction of the Eltham link road which will speed up the construction and make sure that whatever relief measures are possible in the meantime are taken. I hope that they will consider the possibility of trunking the missing three-mile stretch.
I recognise that there are some constituents who are affected along the proposed route of the road. I would say to those living in temporary accommodation that as soon as the road is built they will have a chance of living in a home which will be maintained, and they will no longer receive the reply from whichever authority 1357 is involved that no improvement can take place because the road is supposed to be coming through their homes.
I also ask my hon. Friend to consult ministerial colleagues in other Departments about whether there can be a change to the compensation and insulation provisions for those affected by new road building. I have become very conscious that those on the existing A2 route have been unable to obtain insulation or compensation even though there has been a massive increase in traffic because of new road construction at either end of the unimproved section in between.
If my hon. Friend will take on board those aspects, the debate will have served its purpose. I ask that his Department does everything it can to make sure that the relief road is built and to accelerate it. If that happens, those who stood in the general election in my constituency, where this was a non-political matter, will have found that agreement in politics is just as important at election time as disagreement over party political issues.
§ 9.33 p.m.
§ Mr. Roger Moate (Faversham)I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) will forgive me for rising to take part in the debate. I do so to reinforce wholeheartedly what he has said on behalf of his constituents, for whom he has quite rightly been speaking. I feel for them deeply.
Perhaps I may use the opportunity to speak also for those who suffer the Rochester Way, if I may use that term to describe it, particularly my constituents and those other residents of Kent who have to use that road and who suffer the immense delays and frustrations of trying to negotiate what must be one of the worst traffic bottlenecks in Britain. Like many other Kent Members, I have to negotiate the Rochester Way and when I do so I, too, feel the immense frustration of the inordinate delays.
One is also deeply conscious of the fact that that major route passes through a residential area. One has immense sympathy with all the residents, every one of whom has a poster in his or her window saying "Build the relief road now". It is a historic tragedy that on one 1358 of the major routes to the Continent we have this extraordinary bottleneck.
I commend the indefatigable work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West, but I urge the Government to do all that they can to speed up the programme. However fast it goes now, it is too late. There is a desperate need not only for maximum speed but for the public to be made aware of what is to happen, becapse among the vast majority of people there is total ignorance. They feel that this intolerable delay will go on for ever. If there is any news that can be given about the likely programme, with or without a public inquiry, it will be most helpful.
Again endorsing what my hon. Friend said, in no way should we tolerate the delaying tactics and disruptive actions of some protesters at other public inquiries. If that were to happen, I think that the anger of my hon. Friend's constituents and of many others would be difficult to contain. In no circumstances should there be disruption at public inquiries, but if it were to happen on this occasion it would be the greatest folly because it would represent a grave affront to thousands of people who have suffered considerably.
This road is a major gateway to Europe. It is a major traffic route. I do not know what visitors to Britain must think as they are held up in traffic jam after traffic jam on that route. No other part of London has such bad access. I hope that it will not be long before my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary is able to declare open the Eltham link.
I endorse all that my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West said, and I congratulate him on his initiative in raising the matter in this brief debate.
§ 9.37 p.m.
§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Kenneth Clarke)I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) and to my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) for initiating this short debate about problems on the A2. I am especially grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West for putting on record that the debate has taken place at very short notice because he leapt in to take advantage of an unexpected opportunity to raise the matter on the Floor of the 1359 House. I take the unusual step of mentioning that because, as he will appreciate, I therefore speak without any briefing on the subject and I should not want his constituents to read the report of this debate and think that in some way I had stinted my hon. Friend in my reply and failed to deal in detail with the matters to which he referred. Obviously my main aim has been to listen to what he said, and later I shall study it in detail and write to him more fully.
In my new post, I find myself engaged in a crash course in the geography of England. After a comparatively short time in my Department, I shall acquire a considerable knowledge of the roads and road problems in most parts of the country.
However, I have the advantage already of being very familiar with this stretch of road and the A2 generally. For family reasons I visit Kent frequently, and I share all the feelings about the problems encountered in the neighbourhood of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West. I am delighted to hear that many other hon. Members lobby him on the matter, in addition to his constituents. However, I am sorry to say that I cannot recall having myself pressed him when I have experienced problems on this stretch of road.
I have begun to have a detailed look at the scheme because, almost immediately after my appointment, my hon. Friend wrote to me about this project, known as the Rochester Way relief road. In fact there is a letter in the post to him which had been consigned to him before he approached me this evening to say that he intended to raise this matter on the Adjournment.
I prefer not to speak off the cuff, but my hon. Friend will see from that letter that the scheme for this three-mile length of relief road is a GLC scheme. It is a local authority matter and not a trunk road, and it is not usually the case that the Government intervene in a matter which is substantially for a local authority. But my Department appreciates the considerable urgency of this scheme. It believes that the Great London Council shares fully my hon. Friend's sense of 1360 urgency and that the matter is being given the highest priority by it.
My hon Friend mentioned the possibility of trunking. But, of course, if the GLC has the matter properly in hand, as I believe it does, there can be no question of its trunking a scheme for the sake of it. I shall make further inquiries in the light of what he says. If anything can be done by my Department to speed up progress on this project, after it has suffered the many delays he has described. I shall make sure that this is done.
I was interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham said about demonstrations and direct action if, as is possible, public inquiries arise at a later stage. I hope that demonstrations will not occur. I have strong views that where conflicts arise, as they frequently do, in the case of road schemes, nothing is served by people feeling that they should resort to direct action, either in favour of a scheme or against it. Frequently, there is a clash of interests and a clash of views on a road scheme. Strong feelings are often expressed by motorists and road users experiencing delay on the one hand and people who have strong views about the taking of agricultural or residential land on the other. It should not be beyond the wit of man, in a civilised country, to devise fair procedures where both sides can present sensible and civilised argument, where a proper and detached view can be taken of those arguments and a proper decision reached on the balance of public interest.
I shall not be remotely influenced by dramatic demonstrations or even resorts to violence and intimidation of the kind that have threatened one or two road projects in the not-too-distant past. I share my hon. Friend's desire that nothing of that kind need arise in the case of the Rochester Way relief road.
I also note carefully what my hon. Friend said on the question of compensation to those affected by new road building. This is a difficult matter. A great deal has been done in recent years but I am sure that no one is satisfied that the present arrangements for compensation are wholly satisfactory or fair. I shall bear in mind what my hon. Friend said and look carefully at the work being done in my Department on the adequacy of present terms of compensation. I shall 1361 perhaps make an announcement when an appropriate stage is reached in that work.
§ Mr. Peter BottomleyI am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I suspect that he may be coming towards the end of his reply and I would like to put on record how grateful I am for his courtesy and helpfulness. I shall make sure that my constituents understand the curious circumstances in which this debate arose. Like his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, who managed to have breakfast on this road a few months ago—in a house upon the road—my hon. Friend would be more than welcome to have breakfast with my constituents during the morning rush hour.
§ Mr. ClarkeI am grateful to my hon. Friend. If the circumstances are curious, I am sure that they are also valuable. It is useful to air road problems in this way. 1362 I would be delighted to visit the road on some suitable occasion if time can be found. The distance is not great for me and I trust that if I visit it during the rush hour I will not find the jams so impossible that I shall be delayed for the breakfast that my hon. Friend is offering.
I shall maintain a close interest in the project and visit it, if appropriate. I have to emphasise howerer, that I do not believe that my Department should intervene in local authority schemes so long as the authority is happy that it is giving the scheme priority that it deserves. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he said and for raising this subject this evening.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes to Ten o'clock.